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Category: Reading

Posts in which we talk about reading habits and preferences

Favorite Heyers

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Georgette Heyer. Frequently imitated, never duplicated. Yes, other authors have done wonderful things, splendid, hilarious, beautiful things — but these are their own wonderful things. No one can replicate Heyer’s touch, Heyer’s style, and the wise do not try.

So . . . what are your favorite Georgette Heyer books?

By the way, I love this question. I’ve heard at least twenty different novels listed on “favorites” lists. Some crop up a lot, some crop up rarely, but it seems no one’s list of Heyer favorites is exactly the same as anyone else’s.

Do you like her early, 18th-century books, full of masquerades and highwaymen and Scarlet Pimpernel-influenced escapades? These Old Shades, Powder and Patch, The Masqueraders, The Convenient Marriage? Or do you like just some of these, and not others?

Do you like her more serious romances? Her more farcical ones?

Do you prefer her alpha males (such as the heroes in Venetia and Regency Buck) or her more sensitive men (such as the heroes in Cotillion or The Foundling)?

Have you read Heyer’s mysteries? Her modern novels? If so, do you like them at all?

How about her more historical works, such as Royal Escape and The Conquerer? Or do you prefer to stick to her Georgian and Regency fiction?

So — what are your favorite Heyers? All opinions welcome!

Cara
Cara King — www.caraking.com
MY LADY GAMESTER — Booksellers’ Best Finalist for Best Regency of 2005!

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Finding Regency in all the Strange Places

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The weekend of June 17 I was in Alabama for my high school reunion. I lived at Fort McClellan, Alabama, those years, an army post that closed about five years ago and is now being rejuvenated into a very nice community. My friend Barbara and I visited the neighborhood where we used to live, a neighborhood that is now a historic site, Historic Buckner Circle (just like Chatsworth!). here is a picture of my house and a view of the neighborhood:

Barbara and I attended Jacksonville High School. Our high school building has been demolished, but the town of Jacksonville is very unchanged. We went into a used bookstore in town and look what I found!

It is a book I didn’t own, too. But I own it now.

We also killed time one day at an antique shop and I found this:
It is, of course, a print of the famous Gainsborough portrait of one of my favorite historic figures, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. I have not taken it out of its frame to see if it is an original engraving, but most likely it is a reproduction. In any event, I happily bought it. She looks so beautiful.

The moral of this story is, never pass up a book store or an antique store. You never know what you’ll find.
But I’ll bet you all knew that already.
Cheers,
Diane

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Gail Eastwood talks about the roots of Anglomania

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Does the idea of afternoon tea send a little curl of delight through you? Does the sight of rolling green pastures touched by mist make you yearn to be “across the pond”? Ha, I thought as much. As Regency fans—no, make that fanatics—we are all likely to be Anglophiles at heart—at least, those of us who aren’t lucky enough to be native Brits. Our romanticized fascination with the period is part and parcel of a love for the setting we read and write about.

The dictionary defines “Anglophile” as “a person who admires or sympathizes with Englandand English views, policy, things, etc.” It also says “Anglomania” is “an excessive or undue attachment to, respect for, or imitation of Englishmen or English institutions and customs by a foreigner.” Uh-oh. The Regency gown hanging on the back of my office door proves I am guilty of the “imitation” part of that. Certainly I don’t agree that my respect for and attachment to things English is undue, but hmm, how does one determine “excessive”? Is it a bit eccentric that I, an American, take note of Jane Austen’s and Queen Victoria’s birthdays? I believe that value judgment is both relative and subjective….

Pondering these weighty matters led me the other day to think about where this obsession with things English comes from. Have you ever thought about it? I come from a long line of English ancestors, so I could claim “it’s in the blood”, but I know plenty of Anglophiles/Anglomaniacs who haven’t a drop of English blood and are just as addicted as I am. How about you?
If it’s not heritage, then what? I suspect it’s more than just the obvious loveliness of everything English. I’ve been addicted from a very early age –if not before consciousness, at least before memory. It must be my mother’s fault. Her tool of choice had to be the books –those lovely illustrated children’s books. Beatrix Potter comes to mind in an instant. An edition we had included a sketch of Potter’s beloved home and I loved that picture as much as Peter Rabbit. And even before A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, we read the poems in When We Were Very Young and Now We are Six. I can’t recite “What is the matter with Mary Jane? (She isn’t sick and she hasn’t a pain), and it’s lovely rice pudding for dinner again” without attempting a British accent.

Were you raised with a vicarious diet of things English through books? Which were your favorites? The more I think about it, the more books come to mind: Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows, A Child’s Garden of Verses. There’s such a rich legacy of classic children’s literature from British authors! I went through a phase of reading books about dolls—my favorites were British ones, of course. Rackety-Packety House and Impunity Jane. There had to come a point, though, when this diet fed to me became a preference of my own, and hence, a self-perpetuating addiction. Did you read The Wolves of Willoughby Hall? When did you first discover Jane Austen, or the great Georgette? Once I began to choose books because they were set in England or were about some aspect of English life or characters or history, there was no hope of a cure. And why would anyone want to be cured? This addiction has, of course, has led to a lifetime of delightful reading discoveries and pleasure, not to mention a few humble contributions from my own pen.

Speaking of which, I should mention that The Persistent Earl, the next of my ebook Signet Regency reissues from Penguin Intermix, is due out next week, on December 11. I do hope you’ll take a look at it, and perhaps if you have an Amazon account, you could give me some “likes”? The heroine in this story, a wary widow living in her married sister’s Londonhome and helping to nurse the hero back to health after Waterloo, also serves as a governess of sorts for her charming young nephews and niece. We could do a whole article about what books English children in the Regency were reading, or our characters read as children before that…Isn’t the power of books amazing?
I’ll give away a copy of The Persistent Earl to someone who leaves a comment (and includes their email so I can contact them). Come join the conversation! I’ll draw the winner’s name next Friday, the 14th.
Elena here.  To learn more about Gail and her writing, check out her website at www.gaileastwoodauthor.com 
 
And next week, we’ll be celebrating Jane Austen’s birthday.  There will be prizes.  🙂
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REGENCY AUTHOR UPDATES

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Risky Regencies is your trusty Regency Emporium, serving all your Regency needs. Our readers asked for author updates, and so what do we have for you today? Author Updates!

So grab a cup of tea, pull up a cozy chair, and find out what Regency authors are up to…

VICTORIA HINSHAW tells us she’s been recharging her batteries — thinking, playing with lots of different ideas for plots and characters, and catching up on all the reading she missed while writing three books a year for Zebra. She has a Regency historical in the works, and has also been working on a fictional biography of Princess Charlotte. (I’ve noticed a couple other Regency writers have been going the nonfiction route in one form or another — hmm…is this a trend? Or just three individual writers making individual choices?)

What Victoria Hinshaw was too modest to mention (but we know anyway — ha!) is that her 2005 books have been doing extremely well with the recent contests. ASK JANE (Zebra Regency, April 2005) finalled in several prestigious contests, and won the Golden Quill Award for Best Regency. (That’s the contest our own Elena won in the historical category — so we know it’s a good contest.) 🙂 And with her August release LEAST LIKELY LOVERS, Vicky is competing against Diane and Cara for the Booksellers’ Best Award. (And we still like her! How’s that for professionalism?)

JENNA MINDEL reports, “Here’s what I’m up to now…I’ve been working on a contemporary Inspirational romance set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.” She’s also a RITA finalist for her Regency Miss Whitlow’s Turn!

DOROTHY McFALLS “feels blessed to have landed firmly at Venus Press.” She’s obviously been very busy, with FOUR titles out this year, all different subgenres! Lady Sophia’s Midnight Seduction, a short erotic Regency; Neptune’s Lair and its sequel Marked, which are paranormal erotic suspense; and The Huntress, contemporary mainstream. Wow! Plus her Signet Regency, The Marriage List, is a finalist in the National Readers’ Choice Award. For details on all these projects, visit http://www.dorothymcfalls.com

JO ANN FERGUSON is still writing Regencies. She just turned one in to her editor at Signet where she’s writing as Jocelyn Kelley. She’s been writing the medieval series “The Ladies of St. Jude’s Abbey” as Jocelyn Kelley for the past two years. A Moonlit Knight came out in May and My Lady Knight is scheduled for January 2007. Then she returns to Regencies when the Regency-historical trilogy “The Nethercott Tales” are published by Signet Eclipse. For those of you who enjoyed the Priscilla Flanders mystery series from Zebra Regency, look for these books about the three Nethercott sisters that have suspense elements along with ghostly paranormal. The first book in the series (with a working title of The Mistress School) is scheduled for July 2007 to be followed by Gentleman’s Master. She’s also still writing for ImaJinn as J.A. Ferguson. In 2006, she’s got Luck of the Irish (a leprechaun story), Sworn Upon Fire (an alternate world futuristic), and The Wrong Christmas Carol (an angel Christmas story) coming out.

ANDREA PICKENS/ANDREA DaRIF has been busy with a new series for Warner Forever, the “Hellion Heroes.” The first book, The Spy Wore Silk, is out in March 2007. This is what she says about it: “At first blush, Mrs. Merlin’s Academy for Select Young ladies is the very pattern card of a proper boarding school. But looks can be deceiving, along with music, art, dancing, and the social graces, the students–all streetwise orphans chosen for their toughness and intelligence–are being molded into an elit fighting force. England’s secret weapon. When a critical government document is stolen from Whitehall, the student known only as Siena is given the assignment to keep it from falling into enemies’ hands…”

So, what have your other favorite Regency authors been up to? Check here every Sunday to find out! And if there’s a certain author you’d love to have an update on, let us know!

The Riskies

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Author Updates

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Ah, writing. Not always the smoothest-sailing of careers, but one that has many perks — such as an excuse to put a picture of Wentworth in one’s blog post, because he’s writing, and therefore not off-topic at all.

With the demise of Signet and Zebra’s traditional Regency lines, most of their Regency authors had decisions to make regarding their futures. (Certain course changes were made, some large, some small). Santa recently asked what we Riskies were each working on now, and what certain other Regency authors were currently writing. (Answers are coming, Santa!)

This made me wonder — are there any other particular Signet or Zebra Regency authors that any of you are curious about? We Riskies are exceedingly well-connected — we all have vouchers for Almack’s, after all (although I’m not sure how certain persons got one — I suspect blackmail was involved). So if you all let us know which traditional Regency authors you want updates on, we can use our extensive networks of spies and informants to obtain this information for you.

So — which authors do you want updates on? Please share!

Cara

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